Estella
by FiliaScriptor
Summary: Life does not have to be identical for two people to travel the same path...


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. Not even the computer I write on. Don't rub it in.

**Author's Note**: _This is my first non-poetry writing in about a year, and I'm quite hesitant about posting this. It is a very weird, linear look at the relationship of Tommy and Kimberly, and honestly gets a little hard to follow. Please forgive my insanity, and send me a note. Please?_

**Estella**

Kimberly understood that love rarely lasted. Her own family was a testament to that, broken across the world like leaves scattered in the wind. It wasn't until she watched her mother walk away from it all that she realized how little she knew. In her mind, everything was perfect. Memory after memory, each a lie against her parents' own devices. Were they still in love at her tenth birthday? Her thirteenth? Did they even speak to one another by the time their twentieth anniversary rolled around? Each had become such great actors, that no one knew where the truth ended and the deception began. Love was tightrope walker, balancing in the middle of a hurricane.

Tommy understood that love knew no bounds. He'd lost everything at an age where innocence was still in effect. He had survived though. His parents- his real, loving, adopted parents- took him in and gave him dreams and chances and joy. He didn't care if they were not biological, only that they were the ones who came to him when he had nightmares as a boy, and held him in their arms. Still, he wanted to find his biological family if only for peace of mind. With his parents' consent, he found Sam and David, who accepted him before he accepted them. No, if love wasn't real, Tommy knew he would never have existed.

* * *

Kimberly never knew she could feel like this. He captured her in his eyes, fed her soul with his smile. Was this what love was? Feeling as though nothing mattered but his kiss? It frightened her, it made her lose control. It comforted her, for Tommy was always there to bring her back to safety. He was her White Knight, and even if she had to watch her mother leave a thousand more times, she knew he would be there one thousand and one times to catch her tears. He made her believe that maybe she could be more than just another face. He made her believe that if love was pure, anything was possible.

Tommy never knew he could feel like this. Every word burned onto his soul like a brand. Since when did goodbye hold so much finality? Without any thought, he had climbed into his car and drove towards her, as if he could save her by having enough faith for both of them. No one ever said love equaled wisdom. He stopped the car after two hundred miles. Both hope and gasoline had run out with the sunset. As he fell asleep in the back of his beat up car, he dreamt that she was there next to him, telling him it was all a hoax, a ruthless ploy by the enemy. If he could only believe that… maybe there was some way of salvaging what was left of his bloodied body.

* * *

Kimberly didn't notice the tears until they hit the floor. She had decided to come home after two years away. Homesick and bone tired, she didn't expect to be remembered by anyone. Billy was gone. Trini and Zack were gone. Jason was gone. Tommy… he was further from her than any star in the sky. She had never meant to hurt him, honestly, she never meant. But she had seen her father's indiscretions when her mother was away, witnessed the pain it brought upon all, and she could not bear to go through that again. She could not be one to lose it all. So she broke it off first, without any rhyme or reason, except that she had fallen out of love with him. Really though, she had fallen out of love itself. She expected nothing at home.

Tommy didn't notice the tears until they hit the floor. He had brought Kat to an intimate café for their second anniversary, complete with warm waltz music and a small dance area. Together they swayed in time, savoring each other's warmth. Kat's lips met his chin, her hair brushed against his. She wore flats, as to not seem taller than he. With a slight whisper, they pulled an inch apart, allowing him to pull a small box out of his pocket. Her silent gasp came into clarity as he removed a slender platinum band from it and put it gently onto her finger. In the quiet of the previous nights, as they lay beside each other, Tommy had realized that she made him happy. Though he knew a broken heart never quite beat the same again, he also knew that only love could again make it restart in the first place. On that simple dance floor, they kissed.

* * *

With a start, Kimberly awoke. The bed had stirred as a man climbed out, searching in the dark for his discarded clothing. She pretended not to feel the waves of shame wash off him, pretended not to feel the shame herself, naked underneath the layers of blankets. Had she really fallen to this level of purgatory? Nearly forty, and still searching for someone to make her feel alive. As the faceless man escaped quietly from the hotel room, she got up and made instant coffee. The irony struck her deep in the stomach. Instant coffee. Instant thrill. Instant destruction. Instant life. Maybe her mother was right. You could leave everything you once knew behind, but it could never really leave you.

With a start, Tommy awoke. The nightmares had started again. He looked over to where Katherine lay sleeping, breasts pressed gently against his side, rounded belly protected by his solid hip. He had dreamt of a meaningless life, away from the honor and justice he held dear. He had dreamt that all he had left to look towards was routine, stuck behind a desk where the closest he got to harmony was the music of the concrete jungle. In his heart, he knew one day he would have to be that man. While his soul might be happier with adventure, his child could not live on dignity alone. And his child was all that really mattered. With a final sigh, Tommy placed his head back onto the pillow and his hand upon her stomach. He once said that he would die before he worked a nine-to-five. Falling asleep, he now worried what would happen if he didn't.

* * *

Half her life gone, and still she was lost. Kimberly sat on the lake's edge, staring out into the blue depths. She looked very much the same, though the chestnut in her hair had lost its luster, and white had arrived against her temples. She had loved again in the years, though it had never even crept upon her first devotion. She had felt guilty with Jon, always comparing him to a blackened ghost. In the end, neither of them could breathe in such a lie. Their fragile romance was assassinated the moment he bedded his assistant, though the fatal blow really came when she had pulled out an old photograph the year before. Kimberly wondered if she could be charged with two counts of murder. Her hands were stained with enough blood.

Half his life gone, and still he was lost. Tommy, gray and silent, walked slowly through the park, as the fog of memories past wafted by his mind. Katherine was gone. No one had expected it; no one had even thought that a Ranger, an enigma of strength, could be dead at fifty from cancer. It had taken him months to even gather the superficial strength to leave the house, and another several to speak to anyone about his pain. Everyone told him that she would have wanted him to continue with life… they didn't understand that there was no life after the end of love. Or was there? Love had left him once before, and though part of him died a little then, there was still enough to make it through again. Tommy wasn't sure he would make it this time.

* * *

It would have been easy to pretend. He knew it was her the moment he saw a glimpse of pink. The gray made him hesitate, the lips made him sure. For a time, he considered passing her by without even a greeting. Was a greeting even appropriate after thirty years?

She felt his presence from behind, but made no motion to show her awareness. She had heard of Katherine's death in the news; a well-liked dance teacher dies of breast cancer before her time, stay tuned for more at eleven. She had gone to the cemetery and laid pink roses upon the grave; wept at the first passing of her generation, felt death rattle her bones. She wanted to tell him she was sorry for this, but she knew she would end up apologizing for it all. She was too old for this now.

With a simple turn, the two met eyes. Chocolate upon hazel. Dark against doe. Silently, she atoned for her sins. Carefully, he sat down besides her. They watched two sweethearts paddle across the waters. They both knew they sat where their first kiss had happened thirty-five years before. In somber procession, they reached for each other's hand and spoke no words. No words are needed.

How trusting love was for playing such a complex symphonia, yet still believing that both lovers were strong enough to dance.


End file.
